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A Response to National Geographic’s “Bethlehem, 2007 A.D.”
By Omar Tesdell
The December 2007 issue of National Geographic featured a story on Bethlehem. To its credit, the magazine managed to publish important information about Israel’s wall, checkpoints, and settlement system in Palestine in the mainstream U.S. press, a feat that should not be underestimated. The author, Michael Finkel, discussed the effects of the Israeli segregation system on Palestinian life and included striking photographs of Palestinians at checkpoints, the Israeli wall, and even maps of the Israeli wall in the West Bank.
All of this however, had to be balanced by stories of Palestinian violence, supplemented by the requisite picture of masked, armed Palestinian militants. What would a story about Palestinians be without this staple of American journalism? Conspicuously absent from the article was a photograph showing Israeli soldiers in Bethlehem—a more likely sight in Jesus’ birthplace than masked Palestinians.
Despite its strengths Finkel’s article carries a serious implication that must be addressed. It implies that the reason for Christian Palestinian emigration from Bethlehem is Muslim hostility. In order to make his argument, Finkel sets up a Christian-Muslim dichotomy based on animosity. What are the differences that divide these communities? It is the fact that Christians dress in what he deems “current Western fashion” and frequent a local nightclub. Adding that, “Though some Muslims dress in modern styles, most Islamic women in Bethlehem wear head scarves and others wear jilbobs, long, loose-fitting coverings designed to hide all curves.” This kind of assumption brushes aside the many factors influencing identity in Bethlehem and more importantly, it assigns values like modern versus Islamic (implying civilized versus uncivilized). What purpose do such terms serve?
Furthermore, the same quote above illustrates a related issue. Unless it was a simple typographical error, Finkel betrays a lack of Arabic proficiency. He added an Arabic word as if to lend credence to his argument, but instead made things worse. An Arabic speaker would have known that the standard Romanization for the letter alif is represented as an ‘a’ and therefore jilbob should have been spelled jilbab. While a seemingly minor issue, the error illustrates an important point. American journalists have too often allowed assumptions and inexperience to guide coverage and analysis. The vast majority of American journalists covering the Arab World have no functional ability in spoken or written Arabic. As the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said liked to point out: imagine a reporter being sent to France or Russia without proficiency in French or Russian. Why is a lower standard allowed for Arabic-speaking countries?
The long-discredited mythology (that is happily exaggerated by interest groups) of Palestinian Muslims driving out Palestinian Christians is an easy temptation for writers and Finkel does his best to follow the tradition, assembling quotes from an interview with an ‘anonymous’ Christian Bethlehemite. The anonymous source himself points out that the reason they are unable to survive in Bethlehem is because Palestinian officials have little power and it is the Israeli Army that rules the land. This is what surveys of Palestinian Christians have shown: people are leaving because of the Israeli occupation. Instead Finkel’s next sentence jumps to an unrelated subject—perceived Christian unease with local Muslim families, a statement the author attributes to no one. This is then woven in with other quotes from the anonymous source about Muslim-Christian tension in Bethlehem to dramatize the case.
Any community, Bethlehem included, has certain tensions among groups and families. But playing up those tensions distracts from the article’s most important point: the occupation. The kinds of generalizations and assumptions found in this piece and others have a specific lineage and aim, to further divide Palestinians into categories that serve Israeli government purposes.
Palestinian Christians and Muslims have lived together and survived together for generations. They work together, they play together, they cry together, they celebrate together. If anything has damaged community relations in Palestine, it is the impact of stifling military occupation.
Facile arguments built on speculation and assumption serve the interests of segregation and injustice. People who care about the future of Bethlehem and the region should not allow these assumptions to go unchallenged.
Omar Tesdell is a Palestinian-American and former volunteer at the International Center of Bethlehem (ICB).
For more
information see: Testimony of Fr. Firas Aridah, Parish Priest in Aboud village, on Muslim-Christian relations before the Committee on International Relations of the U.S. House of Representatives (June 2006): http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/archives/109/ari063006.pdf Edward W. Said. 1997. Covering Islam. New York: Vintage Books.
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